
iss J i ^ Z,7V1 



Iv'I';si:nit:i) i;y 



i^:^. 



i 



M 




By ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 



.\7-ir )'()a>a: 1922 




SHAKESPEARE 

From tiie Kesselstadt Death Mask 



SHAKESPEARE. 



A LECTURE 



BY 



Robert G. Ingersoll, 



Shakespeare. — An intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the 
shores of thought. 




NEW YORK 

C. p. FARRELL, PUBLISHER 

1922 






Copyright, 1890, by 
Robert G. Ingersoll 

Renewed, 1918 



Printed in U. S. A. 



SHAKESPEARE. 



L 



Vy^ILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was the great- 
est genius of our world. He left to us the 
richest legacy of all the dead — the treasures of the 
rarest soul that ever lived and loved and wrought 
of words the statues, pictures, robes and gems of 
thought. 

It is hard to overstate the debt we owe 
to the men and women of genius. Take from 
our world what they have given, and all 
the niches would be empty, all the walls 
naked — meaning and connection would fall 
from words of poetry and fiction, music would 
go back to common air, and all the forms 

of subtle and enchanting Art would lose pro- 
Is) 



4 SHAKESPEARE. 

portion and become the unmeaning waste and shat- 
tered spoil of thoughtless Chance. 

Shakespeare is too great a theme. I feel as 
though endeavoring to grasp a globe so large that 
the hand obtains no hold. He who would worthily 
speak of the great dramatist should be inspired by 
*' a muse of fire that should ascend the brightest 
heaven of invention " — he should have '' a kingdom 
for a stage, and monarchs to behold the swelling 
scene." 

More than three centuries ago, the most intellect- 
ual of the human race was born. He was not of 
supernatural origin. At his birth there were no 
celestial pyrotechnics. His father and mother were 
both English, and both had the cheerful habit of 
living in this world. The cradle in which he 
was rocked was canopied by neither myth nor 
miracle, and in his veins there was no drop of royal 
blood. 

This babe became the wonder of mankind. 
Neither of his parents could read or write. He 
grew up in a small and ignorant village on the banks 
of the Avon, in the midst of the common people of 
three hundred years ago. There was nothing in the 
peaceful, quiet landscape on which he looked, noth- 



SHAKESPEARE. 

ing in the low hills, the cultivated and undulating 
fields, and nothing in the murmuring stream, to ex- 
cite the imagination — nothing, so far as we can see, 
calculated to sow the seeds of the subtlest and sub- 
limest thought. 

So there is nothing connected with his education, 
or his lack of education, that in any way accounts 
for what he did. It is supposed that he attended 
school in his native town — but of this we are not 
certain. Many have tried to show that he was, after 
all, of gentle blood, but the fact seems to be the 
other way. Some of his biographers have sought to 
do him honor by showing that he was patronized by 
Queen Elizabeth, but of this there is not the slightest 
proof. 

As a matter of fact, there never sat on any throne 
a king, queen, or emperor who could have honored 
William Shakespeare. 

Ignorant people are apt to overrate the value of 
what is called education. The sons of the poor, 
having suffered the privations of poverty, think of 
wealth as the mother of joy. On the other hand, 
the children of the rich, finding that gold does not 
produce happiness, are apt to underrate the value of 
wealth. So the children of the educated often care 



6 SHAKESPEARE. 

but little for books, and hold all culture in contempt. 
The children of great authors do not, as a rule, be- 
come writers. 

Nature is filled with tendencies and obstructions. 
Extremes beget limitations, even as a river by its 
own swiftness creates obstructions for itself. 

Possibly, many generations of culture breed a 
desire for the rude joys of savagery, and possibly 
generations of ignorance breed such a longing for 
knowledge, that of this desire, of this hunger of the 
brain. Genius is born. It may be that the mind, b}/ 
lying fallow, by remaining idle for generations, 
gathers strength. 

Shakespeare's father seems to have been an or- 
dinary man of his time and class. About the only 
thing we know of him is that he was officially re- 
ported for not coming monthly to church. This is 
good as far as it goes. We can hardly blame him, 
because at that time Richard Bifield was the minister 
at Stratford, and an extreme Puritan, one who read 
the Psalter by Sternhold and Hopkins. 

The church was at one time Catholic, but in John 
Shakespeare's day it was Puritan, and in 1 564, the 
year of Shakespeare's birth, they had the images 
defaced. It is greatly to the honor of John 



SHAKESPEARE. 7 

Shakespeare that he refused to listen to the 
'' tidings of great joy " as delivered by the Puritan 
Bifield. 

Nothing is known of his mother, except her beau- 
tiful name — Mary Arden. In those days but little 
attention was given to the biographies of women. 
They were born, married, had children, and died. 
No matter how celebrated their sons became, the 
mothers were forgotten. In old times, when a man 
achieved distinction, great pains were taken to find 
out about the father and grandfather — the idea 
being that genius is inherited from the father s side. 
The truth is, that all great men have had great 
mothers. Great women have had, as a rule, great 
fathers. 

The mother of Shakespeare was, without doubt, 
one of the greatest of women. She dowered her 
son with passion and imagination and the higher 
qualities of the soul, beyond all other men. It has 
been said that a man of genius should select his an- 
cestors with great care — and yet there does not seem 
to be as much in heredity as most people think. 
The children of the great are often small. Pigmies 
are born in palaces, while over the children of genius 
is the roof of straw. Most of the great are like 



8 SHAKESPEARE. 

mountains, with the valley of ancestors on one side 
and the depression of posterity on the other. 

In his day Shakespeare was of no particular im- 
portance. It may be that his mother had some mar- 
velous and prophetic dreams, but Stratford was 
unconscious of the immortal child. He was never 
engaged in a reputable business. Socially he occu- 
pied a position below servants. The law described 
him as "a sturdy vagabond." He was neither a 
noble, a soldier, nor a priest. Among the half- 
civilized people of England, he who amused and in- 
structed them was regarded as a menial. Kings had 
their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. 
Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus 
that successful stupidity has always treated genius. 
Mozart was patronized by an Archbishop— lived in 
the palace, — but was compelled to eat with the 
scullions. 

The composer of divine melodies was not fit to sit 
by the side of the theologian, who long ago would 
have been forgotten but for the fame of the com- 
poser. 

We know but little of the personal peculiarities, of 
the daily life, or of what may be called the outward 
Shakespeare, and it may be fortunate that so little is 



SHAKESPEARE. 9 

known. He might have been belittled by friendly 
fools. What silly stories, what idiotic personal rem- 
iniscences, would have been remembered by those 
who scarcely saw him ! We have his best — his 
sublimest — and we have probably lost only the 
trivial and the worthless. All that is known can be 
written on a page. 

We are tolerably certain of the date of his birth, 
of his marriage and of his death. We think he went 
to London in i586, when he was twenty-two years 
old. We think that three years afterward he was 
part owner of Blackfriars' Theatre. We have a few 
signatures, some of which are supposed to be gen- 
uine. We know that he bought some land — that 
he had two or three law-suits. We know the names 
of his children. We also know that this incompar- 
able man —so apart from, and so familiar with, all 
the world ^ — lived during his literary life in Lon- 
don — that he was an actor, dramatist and mana- 
ger — that he returned to Stratford, the place of 
his birth, — that he gave his writings to negli- 
gence, deserted the children of his brain — that he 
died on the anniversary of his birth at the age of 
fifty-two, and that he was buried in the church 
where the images had been defaced, and that on his 



lO SHAKESPEARE. 

tomb was chiseled a rude, absurd and ignorant 
epitaph. 

No letter of his to any human being has been 
found, and no line written by him can be shown. 

And here let me give my explanation of the epi- 
taph. Shakespeare was an actor — a disreputable 
business — but he made money — always reputable. 
He came back from London a rich man. He bought 
land, and built houses. Some of the supposed great 
probably treated him with deference. When he died 
he was buried in the church. Then came a re- 
action. The pious thought the church had been 
profaned. They did not feel that the ashes of an 
actor were fit to lie in holy ground. The people 
began to say the body ought to be removed. Then 
it was, as I believe, that Dr. John Hall, Shakes- 
peare's son-in-law, had this epitaph cut on the tomb : 

*' Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 
To digg the dust enclosed heare : 
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones, 
And curst be he yt moves my bones." 

Certainly Shakespeare could have had no fear that 
his tomb would be violated. How could it have en- 
tered his mind to have put a warning, a threat and 
a blessing, upon his grave ? But the ignorant peo- 



SHAKESPEARE. 1 1 

pie of that day were no doubt convinced that the 
epitaph was the voice of the dead, and so feeling 
they feared to invade the tomb. In this way the 
dust was left in peace. 

This epitaph gave me great trouble for years. It 
puzzled me to explain why he, who erected the in- 
tellectual pyramids, — great ranges of mountains — 
should put such a pebble at his tomb. But when I 
stood beside the grave and read the ignorant words, 
the explanation I have given flashed upon me. 

11. 

IT has been said that Shakespeare was hardly men- 
^ tioned by his contemporaries, and that he was 
substantially unknown. This is a mistake. In 1600 
a book was published called England's Parnassus, 
and it contained ninety extracts from Shakespeare. 
In the same year was published the Garden of the 
Muses, containing several pieces from Shakespeare, 
Chapman, Marston and Ben Jonson. England's 
Helicon was printed in the same year, and con- 
tained poems from Spenser, Greene, Harvey and 
Shakespeare. 

In 1600 a play was acted at Cambridge, in which 



1 2 SHAKESPEARE. 

Shakespeare was alluded to as follows : *' Why, here's 
our fellow Shakespeare who puts them all down." 
John Weaver published a book of poems in i5g5, in 
which there was a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 
1 598 Richard Bamfield wrote a poem to Shakes- 
peare. Francis Meres, " clergyman, master of arts 
in both universities, compiler of school books," was 
the author of the Wz^s Treasury. In this he 
compares the ancient and modern tragic poets, and 
mentions Marlowe, Peele, Kyd and Shakespeare. 
So he compares the writers of comedies, and men- 
tions Lilly, Lodge, Greene and Shakespeare. He 
speaks of elegiac poets, and names Surrey, Wyatt, 
Sidney, Raleigh and Shakespeare. He compares 
the lyric poets, and names Spenser, Drayton, 
Shakespeare and others. This same writer, speak- 
ing of Horace, says that England has Sidney, 
Shakespeare and others, and that ''as the soul of 
Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so 
the sweet-wittie soul of Ovid lives in the mellifluous 
and honey-tongued Shakespeare." He also says : 
'' If the Muses could speak English, they would 
speak in Shakespeare's phrase." This was in 1598. 
In 1607, John Davies alludes in a poem to Shakes- 
peare. 



SHAkESPEARE. 1 3 

Of course we are all familiar with what rare Ben 
Jonson wrote. Henry Chettle took Shakespeare to 
task because he wrote nothing on the death of 
Queen Elizabeth. 

It may be wonderful that he was not better known. 
But is it not wonderful that he gained the reputa- 
tion that he did in so short a time, and that twelve 
years after he began to write he stood at least with 
the first ? 



III. 



D UT there is a wonderful fact connected with the 
^^ writings of Shakespeare : In the Plays there is 
no direct mention of any of his contemporaries. 
We do not know of any poet, author, soldier, sailor, 
statesman, priest, nobleman, king, or queen, that 
Shakespeare directly mentioned. 

Is it not marvelous that he, living in an age of 
great deeds, of adventures in far-off lands and un- 
known seas— in a time of religious wars— in the 
days of the Armada — the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew — the Edict of Nantes — the assassination of 
Henry III. — the victory of Lepanto — the execution 
of Marie Stuart — did not mention the name of any 



14 SHAKESPEARE. 

man or woman of his time ? Some have insisted 
that the paragraph ending with the Hnes : 

" The imperial votress passed on in maiden meditation fancy 
free," 

referred to Queen EHzabeth ; but it is impossible 
for me to believe that the daubed and wrinkled face, 
the small black eyes, the cruel nose, the thin lips, 
the bad teeth, and the red wig of Queen Elizabeth 
could by any possibility have inspired these marvel- 
ous lines. 

It is perfectly apparent from Shakespeare's writ- 
ings that he knew but little of the nobility, little of 
kings and queens. He gives to these supposed 
great people great thoughts, and puts great words in 
their mouths and makes them speak — not as they 
really did — but as Shakespeare thought such people 
should. This demonstrates that he did not know 
them personally. 

Some have insisted that Shakespeare mentions 
Queen Elizabeth in the last scene of Henry VIII. 
The answer to this is that Shakespeare did not write 
the last scene in that Play. The probability is that 
Fletcher was the author. 

Shakespeare lived during the great awakening of 



SHAKESPEARE. 1 5 

the world, when Europe emerged from the darkness 
of the Middle Ages, when the discovery of America 
had made England, that blossom of the Gulf- Stream, 
the centre of commerce, and during a period when 
some of the greatest writers, thinkers, soldiers and 
discoverers were produced. 

Cervantes was born in 1S47, dying on the same 
day that Shakespeare died. He was undoubtedly 
the greatest writer that Spain has produced. Rubens 
was born in iS;;. Camoens, the Portuguese, the 
author of the Lusiad, died in i597. Giordano 
Bruno — greatest of martyrs — was born in 1548 — 
visited London in Shakespeare's time — delivered 
lectures at Oxford, and called that institution '' the 
widow of learning." Drake circled the globe in 
i58o. Galileo was born in i564 — the same year 
with Shakespeare. Michael Angelo died in 1563. 
Kepler — he of the Three Laws — born in i57i. 
Calderon,the Spanish dramatist, born in 1601. Cor- 
neille, the French poet, in 1606. Rembrandt, 
greatest of painters, 1607. Shakespeare was born 
in 1664. In that year John Calvin died. What a 
glorious exchange ! 

Seventy-two years after the discovery of America 
Shakespeare was born, and England was filled with 



1 6 SHAKESPEARE. 

the voyages and discoveries written by Hakluyt, 
and the wonders that had been seen by Raieigh, by 
Drake, by Frobisher and Hawkins. London had 
become the centre of the world, and representatives 
from all known countries were in the new metropo- 
lis. The world had been doubled. The imagination 
had been touched and kindled by discovery. In the 
far horizon were unknown lands, strange shores be- 
yond untraversed seas. Toward every part of the 
world were turned the prows of adventure. All 
these things fanned the imagination into flame, and 
this had its effect upon the literary and dramatic 
world. And yet Shakespeare — the master spirit of 
mankind— in the midst of these discoveries, of these 
adventures, mentioned no navigator, no general, no 
discoverer, no philosopher. 

Galileo was reading the open volume of the sky, 
but Shakespeare did not mention him. This to me 
is the most marvelous thing connected with this 
most marvelous man. 

At that time England was prosperous — was then 
laying the foundation of her future greatness and 
power. 

When men are prosperous, they are in love with 
life. Nature grows beautiful, the arts begin to 



SHAKESPEARE. I? 

flourish, there is work for painter and sculptor, the 
poet is born, the stage is erected — and this life with 
which men are in love, is represented in a thousand 
forms. 

Nature, or Fate, or Chance prepared a stage for 
Shakespeare, and Shakespeare prepared a stage for 
Nature. 

Famine and faith go together. In disaster and 
want the gaze of man is fixed upon another world. 
He that eats a crust has a creed. Hunger falls upon 
its knees, and heaven, looked for through tears, is 
the mirage of misery. But prosperity brings joy 
and wealth and leisure — and the beautiful is born. 

One of the effects of the world's awakening was 
Shakespeare. We account for this man as we do 
for the highest mountain, the greatest river, the 
most perfect gem. We can only say : He was. 

*' It hath been taught us from the primal state 
That he which is was wished until he were." 

IV. 

TN Shakespeare's time the actor was a vagabond, the 
^ dramatist a disreputable person — and yet the 
greatest dramas were then written. In spite of law, 
and social ostracism, Shakespeare reared the many- 



1 8 SHAKESPEARE. 

colored dome that fills and glorifies the intellectual 
heavens. 

Now the whole civilized world believes in the 
theatre — asks for some great dramatist — is hungry 
for a play worthy of the century, is anxious to give 
gold and fame to any one who can worthily put our 
age upon the stage — and yet no great play has been 
written since Shakespeare died. 

Shakespeare pursued the highway of the right. 
He did not seek to put his characters in a position 
where it was right to do wrong. He was sound and 
healthy to the centre. It never occurred to him to 
write a play in which a wife's lover should be jealous 
of her husband. 

There was in his blood the courage of his thought. 
He was true to himself and enjoyed the perfect free- 
dom of the highest art. He did not write according 
to rules — but smaller men make rules from what he 
wrote. 

How fortunate that Shakespeare was not educated 
at Oxford — that the winged god within him never 
knelt to the professor. How fortunate that this 
giant was not captured, tied and tethered by the 
literary Liliputians of his time. 

He was an idealist. He did not — like most 



SHAKESPEARE. 1 9 

writers of our time — take refuge in the real, hiding a 
lack of genius behind a pretended love of truth. All 
realities are not poetic, or dramatic, or even worth 
knowing. The real sustains the same relation to the 
ideal that a stone does to a statue — or that paint 
does to a painting. ReaHsm degrades and impover- 
ishes. In no event can a realist be more than an 
imitator and copyist. According to the realist's 
philosophy, the wax that receives and retains an 
image is an artist. 

Shakespeare did not rely on the stage-carpenter, 
or the scenic painter. He put his scenery in his 
lines. There you will find mountains and rivers and 
seas, valleys and cliffs, violets and clouds, and over 
all " the firmament fretted with golden fire." He 
cared little for plot, little for surprise. He did not 
rely on stage effects, or red fire. The plays grow 
before your eyes, and they come as the morning 
comes. Plot surprises but once. There must be 
something in a play besides surprise. Plot in an 
author is a kind of strategy— that is to say, a sort of 
cunning, and cunning does not belong to the highest 
natures. 

There is in Shakespeare such a wealth of thought 
that the plot becomes almost immaterial — and such 



20 SHAKESPEARE. 

is this wealth that you can hardly know the play — 
there is too much. After you have heard it again 
and again, it seems as pathless as an untrodden 
forest. 

He belonged to all lands. *' Timon of Athens " 
is as Greek as any tragedy of Eschylus. '' Julius 
Caesar " and " Coriolanus " are perfect Roman, and 
as you read, the mighty ruins rise and the Eternal 
City once again becomes the mistress of the world. 
No play is more Egyptian than " Antony and Cleo- 
patra" — the Nile runs through it, the shadows of 
the pyramids fall upon it, and from its scenes the 
Sphinx gazes forever on the outstretched sands. 

In '' Lear " is the true pagan spirit. '' Romeo 
and Juliet " is Italian — everything is sudden, love 
bursts into immediate flower, and in every scene is 
the climate of the land of poetry and passion. 

The reason of this is that Shakespeare dealt with 
elemental things, with universal man. He knew 
that locality colors without changing, and that in all 
surroundings the human heart is substantially the 
same. 

Not all the poetry written before his time would 
make his sum — not all that has been written since, 
added to all that was written before, would equal his. 



SHAKESPEARE. 21 

There was nothing within the range of human 
thought, within the horizon of intellectual effort, that 
he did not touch. He knew the brain and heart of 
man — the theories, customs, superstitions, hopes, 
fears, hatreds, vices and virtues of the human 
race. 

He knew the thrills and ecstasies of love, the sav- 
age joys of hatred and revenge. He heard the hiss 
of envy's snakes and watched the eagles of ambition 
soar. There was no hope that did not put its star 
above his head — no fear he had not felt — no joy 
that had not shed its sunshine on his face. He ex- 
perienced the emotions of mankind. He was the 
intellectual spendthrift of the world. He gave with 
the generosity, the extravagance, of madness. 

Read one play, and you are impressed with the 
idea that the wealth of the brain of a god has been 
exhausted — that there are no more comparisons, no 
more passions to be expressed, no more definitions, 
no more philosophy, beauty, or sublimity to be put 
in words — and yet, the next play opens as fresh as 
the dewy gates of another day. 

The outstretched wings of his imagination filled 
the sky. He was the intellectual crown o' the 
earth. 



V. 

TTHE plays of Shakespeare show so much knowl- 
* edge, thought and learning, that many people 
— those who imagine that universities furnish capac- 
ity — contend that Bacon must have been the author. 

We know Bacon. We know that he was a 
scheming politician, a courtier, a time-server of 
church and king, and a corrupt judge. We know 
that he never admitted the truth of the Copernican 
system — that he was doubtful whether instruments 
were of any advantage in scientific investigation — 
that he was ignorant of the higher branches of math- 
ematics, and that, as a matter of fact, he added but 
little to the knowledge of the world. When he was 
more than sixty years of age he turned his attention 
to poetry, and dedicated his verses to George 
Herbert. 

If you will read these verses you will say that the 
author of '* Lear *' and *' Hamlet " did not write them. 

Bacon dedicated his work on the Advancement of 
Learning, Divine and Human, to James I., and in 
his dedication he stated that there had not been, 
since the time of Christ, any king or monarch so 
learned in all erudition, divine or human. He 
placed James the First before Marcus Aurelius and 

(22) 



SHAKESPEARE. 23 



all Other kings and emperors since Christ, and con- 
cluded by saying that James the First had ** the 
power and fortune of a king, the illumination of a 
priest, the learning and universality of a philosopher/' 
This was written of James the First, described by 
Macaulay as a '' stammering, slobbering, trembling 
coward, whose writings were deformed by the 
grossest and vilest superstitions — witches being the 
special objects of his fear, his hatred, and his perse- 
cution." 

It seems to have been taken for granted that if 
Shakespeare was not the author of the great dramas. 
Lord Bacon must have been. 

It has been claimed that Bacon was the greatest 
philosopher of his time. And yet in reading his 
works we find that there was in his mind a strange 
mingling of foolishness and philosophy. He takes 
pains to tell us, and to write it down for the benefit 
of posterity, that " snow is colder than water, 
because it hath more spirit in it, and that quicksilver 
IS the coldest of all metals, because it is the fullest of 
spirit." 

He stated that he hardly believed that you could 
contract air by putting opium on top of the weather 
glass, and gave the following reason : 



24 SHAKESPEARE. 

'' I conceive that opium and the like make spirits 
fly rather by malignity than by cold." 

This great philosopher gave the following recipe 
for staunching blood : 

" Thrust the part that bleedeth into the body of a 
capon, new ripped and bleeding. This will staunch 
the blood. The blood, as it seemeth, sucking and 
drawing up by similitude of substance the blood it 
meeteth with, and so itself going back." 

The philosopher also records this important fact : 

*' Divers witches among heathen and Christians 
have fed upon man's flesh to aid, as it seemeth, their 
imagination with high and foul vapors." 

Lord Bacon was not only a philosopher, but he 
was a biologist, as appears from the following : 

** As for living creatures, it is certain that their 
vital spirits are a substance compounded of an airy 
and flamy matter, and although air and flame being 
free will not mingle, yet bound in by a body that 
hath some fixing, will." 

Now and then the inventor of deduction reasons 
by analogy. He says : 

** As snow and ice holpen, and their cold activated 
by nitre or salt, will turn water into ice, so it may be 
k will turn wood or stiff clay into stone." 



SHAKESPEARE. 25 

Bacon seems to have been a believer in the trans- 
mutation of metals, and solemnly gives a formula for 
changing silver or copper into gold. He also be- 
lieved in the transmutation of plants, and had arrived 
at such a height in entomology that he informed the 
world that '' insects have no blood." 

It is claimed that he was a great observer, and as 
evidence of this he recorded the wonderful fact that 
** tobacco cut and dried by the fire loses weight ;" 
that '' bears in the winter wax fat in sleep, though 
they eat nothing ;'* that " tortoises have no bones ;" 
that '* there is a kind of stone, if ground and put in 
water where cattle drink, the cows will give more 
milk ;" that *' it is hard to cure a hurt in a French- 
man's head, but easy in his leg ; that it is hard to 
cure a hurt in an Englishman's leg, but easy in his 
head ;" that '' wounds made with brass weapons are 
easier to cure than those made with iron;" that 
" lead will multiply and increase, as in statues buried 
in the ground ;" and that *' the rainbow touching 
anything causeth a sweet smell." 

Bacon seems also to have turned his attention to 
ornithology, and says that " eggs laid in the full of 
the moon breed better birds," and that '' you can 
make swallows white by putting ointment on the 
eggs before they are hatched." 



26 SHAKESPEARE. 

He also informs us '' that witches cannot hurt kings 
as easily as they can common people ;" that " per- 
fumes dry and strengthen the brain ;" that '' any one 
in the moment of triumph can be injured by another 
who casts an envious eye, and the injury is greatest 
when the envious glance comes from the obHque 
eye. 

Lord Bacon also turned his attention to medicine, 
and he states that '' bracelets made of snakes are good 
for curing cramps ;" that '' the skin of a wolf might 
cure the colic, because a wolf has great digestion ;" 
that '' eating the roasted brains of hens and hares 
strengthens the memory ;" that *' if a woman about 
to become a mother eats a good many quinces and 
considerable coriander seed, the child will be ingen- 
ious," and that '' the moss which groweth on the 
skull of an unburied dead man is good for staunch- 
ing blood." 

He expresses doubt, however, *' as to whether you 
can cure a wound by putting ointment on the weapon 
that caused the wound, instead of on the wound it- 
self." 

It is claimed by the advocates of the Baconian 
theory that their hero stood at the top of science ; 
and yet '' it is absolutely certain that he was ignorant 



SHAKESPEARE. 27 

of the law of the acceleration of falling bodies, al- 
thouo-h the law had been made known and printed 
by Galileo thirty years before Bacon wrote upon the 
subject. Neither did this great man understand the 
principle of the lever. He was not acquainted with 
the precession of the equinoxes, and as a matter of 
fact was ill-read in those branches of learning in 
which, in his time, the most rapid progress had been 

made." 

After Kepler discovered his third law, which was on 
the 1 5th of May, 1618, Bacon was more than ever 
opposed to the Copernican system. This great man 
was far behind his own time, not only in astronomy, 
but in mathematics. In the preface to the '' De- 
scriptio Cxlobi Intellectualis," it is admitted either 
that Bacon had never heard of the correction of the 
parallax, or was unable to understand it. He com- 
plained on account of the want of some method for 
shortening mathematical calculations ; and yet '' Na- 
pier's Logarithms " had been printed nine years be- 
fore the date of his complaint. 

He attempted to form a table of specific gravities 
by a rude process of his own, a process that no one 
has ever followed ; and he did this in spite of the 
fact that a far better method existed. 



28 SHAKESPEARE. 

We have the right to compare what Bacon wrote 
with what it is claimed Shakespeare produced. I 
call attention to one thing — to Bacon's opinion of 
human love. It is this : 

*' The stage is more beholding to love than the life 
of man. As to the stage, love is ever matter of 
comedies and now and then of tragedies, but in life 
it doth much mischief — sometimes like a siren, 
sometimes like a fury. Amongst all the great and 
worthy persons there is not one that hath been 
transported to the mad degree of love, which shows 
that great spirits and great business do keep out this 
weak passion." 

The author of '* Romeo and JuHet " never wrote 
that. 

It seems certain that the author of the wondrous 
Plays was one of the noblest of men. 

Let us see what sense of honor Bacon had. 

In writing commentaries on certain passages of 
Scripture, Lord Bacon tells a courtier, who has com- 
mitted some offence, how to get back into the graces 
of his prince or king. Among other things he tells 
him not to appear too cheerful, but to assume a very 
grave and modest face ; not to bring the matter up 
himself; to be extremely industrious, so that the 



SHAKESPEARE. 2^ 

prince will see that It is hard to get along without 
him ; also to get his friends to tell the prince or king 
how badly he, the courtier, feels ; and then he says, 
all these failing, " let him contrive to transfer the 
fault to others." 

It is true that we know but little of Shakespeare, 
and consequendy do not positively know that he did 
not have the ability to write the Plays — but we do 
know Bacon, and we know that he could not have 
written these Plays — consequently, they must have 
been written by a comparatively unknown man — 
that is to say, by a man who was known by no other 
writings. The fact that we do not know Shakes- 
peare, except through the Plays and Sonnets, makes 
it possible for us to believe that he was the author. 

Some people have imagined that the Plays were 
written by several — but this only increases the won- 
der, and adds a useless burden to credulity. 

Bacon published in his time all the writings that 
he claimed. Naturally, he would have claimed his 
best. Is it possible that Bacon left the wondrous 
children of his brain on the door-step of Shakes- 
peare, and kept the deformed ones at home ? Is it 
possible that he fathered the failures and deserted 
the perfect ? 



30 SHAKESPEARE. 

Of course, it is wonderful that so little has been 
found touching Shakespeare — but is it not equally- 
wonderful, if Bacon was the author, that not a line 
has been found in all his papers, containing a sug- 
gestion, or a hint, that he was the writer of these 
Plays ? Is it not wonderful that no fragment of any 
scene — no line — no word — has been found ? 

Some have insisted that Bacon kept the author- 
ship secret because it was disgraceful to write Plays. 
This argument does not cover the Sonnets — and 
besides, one who had been stripped of the robes of 
office for receiving bribes as a judge, could have 
borne the additional disgrace of having written 
*' Hamlet." The fact that Bacon did not claim to be 
the author, demonstrates that he was not. Shakes- 
peare claimed to be the author, and no one in his 
time or day denied the claim. This demonstrates 
that he was. 

Bacon published his works, and said to the world : 
This is what I have done. 

Suppose you found in a cemetery a monument 
erected to John Smith, inventor of the Smith-churn, 
and suppose you were told that Mr. Smith provided 
for the monument in his will, and dictated the in- 
scription — would it be possible to convince you 



SHAKESPEARE. 3 1 

that Mr. Smith was also the inventor of the locomo- 
tive and telegraph ? 

Bacon's best can be compared with Shakespeare's 
common, but Shakespeare's best rises above Bacon's 
best, like a domed temple above a beggar's hut. 



VI. 



/^F course it is admitted that there were many 
^^ dramatists before and during the time of 
Shakespeare — but they were only the foot hills of 
that mighty peak the top of which the clouds and 
mists still hide. Chapman and Marlowe, Heywood 
and Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher wrote 
some great lines, and in the monotony of declama- 
tion now and then is found a strain of genuine music 
— but all of them together constituted only a herald 
of Shakespeare. In all these Plays there is but a 
hint, a prophecy, of the great drama destined to revo- 
lutionize the poetic thought of the world. 

Shakespeare was the greatest of poets. What 
Greece and Rome produced was great until his time. 
" Lions make leopards tame." 

The great poet is a great artist. He is painter 
and sculptor. The greatest pictures and statues 



32 SHAKESPEARE. 

have been painted and chiseled with words. They 
outlast all others. All the galleries of the world are 
poor and cheap compared with the statues and pic- 
tures in Shakespeare's book. 

Language is made of pictures represented by 
sounds. The outer world is a dictionary of the 
mind, and the artist called the soul uses this diction- 
ary of things to express what happens in the noise- 
less and invisible world of thought. First a sound 
represents something in the outer world, and after- 
wards something in the inner, and this sound at last 
is represented by a mark, and this mark stands for a 
picture, and every brain is a gallery, and the artists 
— that is to say, the souls — exchange pictures and 
statues. 

All art is of the same parentage. The poet uses 
words — makes pictures and statues of sounds. The 
sculptor expresses harmony, proportion, passion, in 
marble ; the composer, in music ; the painter in form 
and color. The dramatist expresses himself not only 
in words, not only paints these pictures, but he ex- 
presses his thought in action. 

Shakespeare was not only a poet, but a dramatist, 
and expressed the ideal, the poetic, not only in words, 
but in action. There are the wit, the humor, the 



SHAKESPEARE. 33 

pathos, the tragedy of situation, of relation. The 
dramatist speaks and acts through others — his per- 
sonality is lost. The poet lives in the world of 
thought and feeling, and to this the dramatist adds 
the world of action. He creates characters that 
seem to act in accordance with their own natures 
and independently of him. He compresses lives into 
hours, tells us the secrets of the heart, shows us the 
springs of action — how desire bribes the judgment 
and corrupts the will — how weak the reason is 
when passion pleads, and how grand it is to stand 
for right against the world. 

* It is not enough to say fine things, — great things, 
dramatic things, must be done. 

Let me give you an illustration of dramatic inci- 
dent accompanying the highest form of poetic ex- 
pression : 

Macbeth having returned from the murder of 
Duncan says to his wife : 

* * Methought I heard a voice cry : Sleep no more, 
Macbeth does murder sleep ; the innocent sleep ; 
Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, 
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast." * * * 



34 SHAKESPEARE. 

" Still it cried : Sleep no more, to all the house, 
Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdof 
Shall sleep no more — Macbeth shall sleep no more,*"* 

She exclaims : 

*' Who was it that thus cried ? 
Why, worthy Thane, you do unbend your noble strength 
To think so brain-sickly of things ; get some water, 
And wash this filthy witness from your hand. 
Why did you bring the daggers from the place f^^ 

Macbeth was so overcome with horror at his own 
deed, that he not only mistook his thoughts for the 
words of others, but was so carried away and beyond 
himself that he brought with him the daggers — the 
evidence of his guilt — the daggers that he should 
have left with the dead. This is dramatic. 

In the same play, the difference of feeling before 
and after the commission of a crime is illustrated to 
perfection. When Macbeth is on his way to assassin- 
ate the king, the bell strikes, and he says, or whis- 
pers : 

** Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell." 

Afterward, when the deed has been committed, 
and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries : 

** Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst." 



SHAKESPEARE. 35 

Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. 
When Antony speaks above the body of Caesar he 
says : 

' ' You all do know this mantle : I remember 
The first time ever Caesar put it on — 
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, 
That day he overcame the Nervii : 
Look ! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through : 
See what a rent the envious Casca made ! 
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed, 
And as he plucked his cursed steel away, 
Mark how the blood of Csesar followed it." 



VII. 



T^HERE are men, and many of them, who are al- 
'■■ ways trying to show that somebody else chiseled 
the statue or painted the picture, — that the poem is 
attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was 
really won by a subordinate. 

Of course Shakespeare made use of the work of 
others — and, we might almost say, of all others. 
Every writer must use the work of others. The only 
question is, how the accomplishments of other minds 
are used, whether as a foundation to build higher, or 
whether stolen to the end that the thief may make a 



36 SHAKESPEARE, 

reputation for himself,, without adding to the great 
structure of literature. 

Thousands of people have stolen stones from the 
Coliseum to make huts for themselves. So thou- 
sands of writers have taken the thoughts of others 
with which to adorn themselves. These are plagiar- 
ists. But the man who takes the thought of another, 
adds to it, gives it intensity and poetic form, throb 
and life, — is in the highest sense original. 

Shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the 
writings of others, and was indebted to others for 
most of the stories of his plays. The question is not: 
Who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, 
but who chiseled the statue ? 

We now know all the books that Shakespeare 
could have read, and consequently know many of 
the sources of his information. We find in Pliny's 
Natural History, published in 1601, the following : 
" The sea Pontis evermore floweth and runneth out 
into the Propontis ; but the sea never retireth back 
again with the Impontis." This was the raw mate- 
rial, and out of it Shakespeare made the following : 

* ' Like to the Pontic Sea, 
Whose icy current and compulsive course 
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on 



SHAKESPEARE. 37 

To the Propontic and the Hellespont 

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, 
Shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love, 
Till that a capable and wide revenge 
Swallow them up. ' ' 

Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference be- 
tween Shakespeare and other poets, by a passage 
from '' Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon 
her father's head and speaks of the night and of the 
storm, an ordinary poet might have said : 

' ' On such a night, a dog 
Should have stood against my fire." 

A very great poet might have gone a step further 
and exclaimed : 

'' On such a night, mine enemy's dog 
Should have stood against my fire. ' ' 

But Shakespeare said : 

'' Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, 
Should have stood, that night, against my fire." 

Of all the poets — of all the writers — Shakespeare 
is the most original. He is as original as Nature. 

It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff 
to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another." 



VIII. 

'T^HERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extrav- 
^ agance that touches the infinite, and in this 
Shakespeare exceeds all others. 

You will remember the description given of the 
voyage of Paris in search of Helen : 

'' The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce, 
And did him service ; he touched the ports desired, 
And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive, 
He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshness 
Wrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning." 

So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, 
he cries out : 

' ' O Helicanus ! strike me, honored sir ; 
Give me a gash, put me to present pain, 
Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me, 
O'erbear the shores of my mortality." 

The greatest compliment that man has ever paid 
to the woman he adores is this line : 

" Eyes that do mislead the morn." 

Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic. 
In that marvelous play, the ** Midsummer Night's 
Dream," is one of the most extravagant things in 

literature : 

(38) 



SHAKESPEARE. 39 

** Thou rememberest 
Since once I sat upon a promontory, 
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back 
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath / 

That the rude sea grew civil at her song, 
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
To hear the sea-maid's music." 

This is so marvelously told that it almost seems 

probable. 

So the description of Mark Antony : 

' ' For his bounty 
There was no winter in't — an autumn t'was 
That grew the more by reaping. His delights 
Were dolphin-Hke — they showed his back above 
The element they lived in." 

Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of 
this : 

" Her bed is India — there she lies a pearl." 

Is there anything more intense than these words 
of Cleopatra ? 

* ' Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark naked 
And let the water-flies blow me into abhorring. ' * 

Or this of Isabella : 

** The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies, 
And strip myself to death as to a bed 
That longing I've been sick for, ere I yield 
My body up to shame." 



40 SHAKESPEARE. 

Is there an intellectual man in the world who will 
not agree with this ? 

** Let me not live 
After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff 
Of younger spirits." 

Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when 
parting with Cressida : 

' * We two, that with so many thousand sighs 
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves 
With the rude brevity and discharge of one. 
Injurious time now with^a robber's haste 
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how ; 
As many farewells as be stars in heaven. 
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them, 
He fumbles up into a loose adieu, 
And scants us with a single famished kiss, 
Distasted with the salt of broken tears. ' ' 

Take this example, where pathos almost touches 
the grotesque. 

* ' O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair ? 
Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous, 
And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee here 
r the dark, to be his paramour?" 

Often when reading the marvelous lines of Shake 
speare, I feel that his thoughts are " too subtle potent^ 
tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the capacity of my 



SHAKESPEARE. ^j 

ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, ** O churl! — 
write all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow 
after." 



IX, 



OHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. 
He cared nothing for the authority of men or 
of schools. He violated the '' unities," and cared 
nothing for the models of the ancient world. 

The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a 
play that did not tend to the catastrophe. They did 
not beheve in the episode — in the sudden contrasts 
of light and shade — in mingHng the comic and the 
tragic. The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and 
darkness did not overtake their laughter. They be- 
lieved that nature sympathized or was in harmony, 
with the events of the play. When crime was about 
to be committed — some horror to be perpetrated — 
the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees shiv- 
ered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming 
event. 

Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do 
with the tides and currents of universal life — that 
Nature cares neither for smiles nor tears, for life nor 



42 SHAKESPEARE. 

death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as 
on cradles. 

The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, 
where during the French Revolution stood the guil- 
lotine, and where now stands an Egyptian obelisk — 
a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its 
might. — Nature forgets. 

One of the most notable instances of the violation 
by Shakespeare of the classic model, is found in the 
6th scene of the I. Act of Macbeth. 

When the King and Banquo approach the castle 
in which the King is to be murdered that night, no 
shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful is 
the scene that the King says : 

' ' This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses. ' ' 

And Banquo adds : 

' ' This guest of summer, 
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve 
By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath 
Smells wooingly here ; no jutty, frieze. 
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird 
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle. 
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate. ' * 



SHAKESPEARE. 43 

Another notable instance is the porter scene im- 
mediately following the murder. So, too, the dia- 
logue with the clown who brings the asp to Cleopatra 
just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning. 

I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama 
worthy of Shakespeare. This is in " Medea." When 
Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the 
ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the 
conclusion says : *' I pray the gods to make him vir- 
tuous, that he may the more deeply feel the pang 
that I inflict." 

Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was 
intense. He put noons and midnights side by side. 
No other dramatist would have dreamed of adding 
to the pathos -^ — of increasing our appreciation of 
Lear's agony, by supplementing the wail of the mad 
king with the mocking laughter of a loving clown. 

X. 

T^HE ordinary dramatists — ^^the men of talent — 
■'• (and there is the same difference between talent 
and genius that there is between a stone-mason and 
a sculptor) create characters that become types. 
Types are of necessity caricatures — actual men and 
women are to some extent contradictory in their 



44 SHAKESPEARE. 

actions. Types are blown in the one direction by 
the one wind— characters have pilots. 

In real people, good and evil mingle. Types are 
all one way, or all the other — all good, or all bad, 
all wise, or all foolish. 

Pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite — 
and will remain a type as long as language lives — a 
hypocrite that even drunkenness could not change. 
Everybody understands Pecksniff, and compared 
with him Tartuffe was an honest man. 

Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being 
— and for that reason there is a difference of opinion 
as to his motives and as to his character. We differ 
about Hamlet as we do about Csesar, or about Shake- 
speare himself. 

Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard 
again his father's voice, and yet, afterward, he 
speaks of '' the undiscovered country from whose 
bourne no traveler returns." 

In this there is no contradiction. The reason out- 
weighs the senses. If we should see a dead man 
rise from his grave, we would not, the next day, be- 
lieve that we did. No one can credit a miracle until 
it becomes so common that it ceases to be miracu- 
lous. 



SHAKESPEARE. 45 

Types are puppets — controlled from without — • 
characters act from within. There is the same differ- 
ence between characters and types that there is be- 
tween springs and water-works, between canals and 
rivers, between wooden soldiers and heroes. 

In most plays and in most novels the characters 
are so shadowy that we have to piece them out with 
the imagination. 

One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the 
foot of his bed a strange figure — it may be of an 
ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with the ex- 
pression of garrulous and fussy old age — but when 
the light gets stronger, the figure gradually changes 
and he sees a few clothes on a chair. 

The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order 
to delineate character must not only have imagina- 
tion but sympathy with the character delineated. 
The great dramatist thinks of a character as an en- 
tirety, as an individual. 

I once had a dream, and in this dream I was dis- 
cussing a subject with another man. It occurred to 
me that I was dreaming, and I then said to myself : 
If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both 
sides — consequently I ought to know in advance 
what the other man is going to say. In my dream I 



46 SHAKESPEARE. 

tried the experiment. I then asked the other man a 
question, and before he answered made up my mind 
what the answer was to be. To my surprise, the man 
did not say what I expected he would, and so great 
was my astonishment that I awoke. 

It then occurred to me that I had discovered the 
secret of Shakespeare. He did, when awake, what 
I did when asleep — that is, he threw off a character 
so perfect that it acted independently of him. 

In the delineation of character Shakespeare has 
no rivals. He creates no monsters. His characters 
do not act without reason, without motive. 

lago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not 
destroyed — and Lady Macbeth certifies that the 
woman still was in her heart, by saying : 

** Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it." 

Shakespeare's characters act from within. They 
are centres of energy. They are not pushed by un- 
seen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have 
objects, desires. They are persons— real, living 
beings. 

Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters 
loose from the canvas — their backs stick to the wall 
— they do not have free and independent action — • 



SHAKESPEARE. 47 

they have no background, no unexpressed motives 
— no untold desires. They lack the complexity of 
the real. 

Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. 
Christopher Sly, surrounded by the luxuries of a 
lord, true to his station, calls for a pot of the small- 
est ale. 

Take one expression by Lady Macbeth. You 
remember that after the murder is discovered — after 
the alarm bell is rung- — she appears upon the scene 
wanting to know what has happened. Macduff re- 
fuses to tell her, saying that the slightest word would 
murder as it fell. At this moment Banquo comes 
upon the scene and Macduff cries out to him : 

*'Our royal master's murdered. '* 

What does Lady Macbeth then say? She in fact 
makes a confession of guilt. The weak point in the 
terrible tragedy is that Duncan was murdered in 
Macbeth's castle. So when Lady Macbeth hears 
what they suppose is news to her, she cries : 

''What! In our house!" 

Had she been innocent, her horror of the crime 
would have made her forget the place — the venue. 
Banquo sees through this, and sees through her. 



4S SHAKESPEARE. 

Her expression was a light, by which he saw her 
guilt — and he answers : 

*'Too cruel anywhere. ** 

No matter whether Shakespeare delineated clown 
or king, warrior or maiden — no matter whether his 
characters are taken from the gutter or the throne — 
each is a work of consummate art, and when he is 
unnatural, he is so splendid that the defect is for- 
gotten. 

When Romeo is told of the death of Juliet, and 
thereupon makes up his mind to die upon her grave, 
he gives a description of the shop where poison 
could be purchased. He goes into particulars and 
tells of the alligators stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped 
fishes, of the beggarly account of empty boxes, of 
the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses 
— and while it Is hardly possible to believe that 
under such circumstances a man would take the 
trouble to make an Inventory of a strange kind of 
drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect — the 
picture is so marvelously drawn — that we forget to 
think whether It is natural or not. 

In making the frame of a great picture — of a great 
scene— Shakespeare was often careless, but the 



SHAKESPEARE. 49 

picture is perfect. In making the sides of the arch 
he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, 
it burst into blossom. Of course there are many 
lines in Shakespeare that never should have been 
written. In other words, there are imperfections in 
his plays. But we must remember that Shakespeare 
furnished the torch that enables us to see these im- 
perfections. 

Shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we 
must not mistake what the characters say, for the 
opinion of Shakespeare. No one can believe that 
Shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an 
idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." 
That was the opinion of a murderer, surrounded by 
avengers, and whose wife — partner in his crimes — 
troubled with thick-coming fancies — had gone down 
to her death. 

. Most actors and writers seem to suppose that the 
lines called '' The Seven Ages " contain Shake- 
speare's view of human life. Nothing could be further 
from the truth. The lines were uttered by a cynic, 
in contempt and scorn of the human race. 

Shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery 
and uniform of some weakness, peculiarity or pas- 
sion. He did not use names as tags or brands. He 



5o SHAKESPEARE. 

did not write under the picture, ^' This is a villain." 
His characters need no suggestive names to tell us 
what they are — we see them and we know them for 
ourselves. 

It may be that in the greatest utterances of the 
greatest characters in the supreme moments, we 
have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions of 
Shakespeare. 

Of all writers Shakespeare is the most impersonal. 
He speaks through others, and the others seem to 
speak for themselves. The didactic is lost in the 
dramatic. He does not use the stage as a pul- 
pit to enforce some maxim. He is as reticent as 
Nature. 

He idealizes the common and transfigures all 
he touches — but he does not preach. He was in- 
terested in men and things as they were. He did 
not seek to change them — but to portray. He was 
Nature's mirror — and in that mirror Nature saw 
herself. 

When I stood amid the great trees of Cali- 
fornia that lift their spreading capitals against 
the clouds, looking like Natures columns to 
support the sky, I thought of the poetry of Shake- 
speare. 



w 



XI. 

HAT a procession of men and women — states- 
men and warriors — kings and clowns — 
issued from Shakespeare's brain ! What women ! 

Isabella— m whose spotless life love and reason 
blended into perfect truth. 

Juliet— ^I'^vci whose heart passion and purity 
met like white and red within the bosom of a rose. 

G?r^^//^— who chose to suffer loss, rather than 
show her wealth of love with those who gilded lies 
in hope of gain. 

Hermione — '' tender as infancy and grace " — who 
bore with perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, 
and who at last forgave with all her heart. 

Desdemona—so innocent, so perfect, her love so 
pure, that she was incapable of suspecting that an- 
other could suspect, and who with dying words 
sought to hide her lover's crime— and with her last 
faint breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a 
perfumed lily between her pallid lips. 

Perdzia—'' a violet dim, and sweeter than the lids 

of Juno's eyes"— "The sweetest low-born lass that 

ever ran on the green sward." And 

Helena— '"^h-O said : 

(51) 



I 



52 SHAKESPEARE. 

** I know I love in vain, strive against hope — ' 
Yet in this captious and intenable sieve 
I still pour in the waters of my love, 
And lack not to lose still, 
Thus, Indian-like, 
Religious in mine error, I adore 

The sun that looks upon his worshiper, ! 

But knows of him no more." 

Miranda — v^ho told her love as gladly as a flower 
gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun. And 

Cordelia — whose kisses cured and whose tears 
restored. And stainless ^ 

Imogen — who cried : ** What is it to be false ? *' 

And here is the description of the perfect woman : 

'* To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love ; 
To keep her constancy in plight and youth — 
Outliving beauty's outward with a mind 
That doth renew swifter than blood decays.'* 

Shakespeare has done more for woman than all 
the other dramatists of the world. 

For my part, I love the Clowns. I love Launce 
and his dog Crabb, and Gobbo, whose conscience 
threw its arms around the neck of his heart, and 
Touchstoney with his lie seven times removed ; and 
dear old Dogberry — a pretty piece of flesh, tedious 
as a king. And Bottoniy the very paramour for a 



SHAKESPEARE. 53 

sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in ; 
and Autolycus, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, 
sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And 
great Sir John, without conscience, and for that 
reason unblamed and enjoyed — and who at the end 
babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And 
ancient Pistol, the world his oyster. And Bardolpk, 
with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders 
in mind of a damned soul in hell. And the poor 
Fool, who followed the mad king, and went ** to bed 
at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of 
Nilus, whose '' biting was immortal." And Covin, 
the shepherd — who described the perfect man : *' I 
am a true laborer : I earn that I eat — get that I 
wear — owe no man aught — envy no man's happi- 
ness — glad of other men's good —content." 

And mingling in this motley throng, Lear, within 
whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were 
stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given 
back to memory ■ — and then by madness thrown to 
storm and night — and when I read the living lines 
I feel as though I looked upon the sea and saw it 
wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried 
treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years 
were cast upon the shores. 



54 SHAKESPEARE. 

And Othello • — who like the base Indian threw a 
pearl away richer than all his tribe. 

And Hamlet — thought-entangled — hesitating be- 
tween two worlds. 

And Macbeth — strange mingling of cruelty and 
conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful 
crime — *' Curses not loud but deep — mouth-honor 
—breath." 

And Brutus, falling on his sword that C^sar might 
be still. 

And Romeo, dreaming of the white wonder of 
Juliet's hand. And Ferdinand, the patient log-man 
for Miranda's sake. And Florizel, who, '' for all the 
sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound 
seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born 
lass. And Constance, weeping for her son, while 
grief '' stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." 

And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love 
and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the 
good friar, who declares that in every human heart, 
as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the 
opposed hosts of good and evil — and our philosophy 
is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk 
is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that 
hurries by a ruined mill. 



SHAKESPEARE. 55 

From every side the characters crowd upon us — 
the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. 
They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of 
the " myriad-minded " man, and impress themselves 
upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really 
lived with us. 

Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every 
possible phase — has ascended to the very top, and 
actually reached heights that no other has imagined. 
I do not believe the human mind will ever produce 
or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play 
than " Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which 
all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into 
blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intox- 
ication of a divine perfume. 

In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser 
metals were turned to gold — passions became vir- 
tues — weeds became exotics from some diviner 
land — and common mortals made of ordinary clay 
outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there 
was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite — 
that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and 
mathematical — dominated by prudence and the 
thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative 
instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and 



56 SHAKESPEARE. 

waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of 
the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered 
gems. 

Some things are immortal : The plays of Shake- 
speare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of 
Wagner. 



XIL 



O H AKESPEARE was the greatest of philosophers. 
He knew the conditions of success — of hap- 
piness — the relations that men sustain to each 
other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and 
currents of the heart — the cliffs and caverns of the 
brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the soph- 
istry of desire — and 

* ' That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than ad- 
ders to the voice of any true decision." 

He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world 
— that flesh is but a mask, and that 

"There is no art to find the mind's construction 
In the face." 

He knew that courage should be the servant of 
judgment, and that 



i 



SHAKESPEARE. 5j 

" When valor preys on reason it eats the sword 
It fights with." 

He knew that man is never master of the event, 
that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the 
blind forces of the world, and that 

" In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men." 

Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that 
that which must happen is as much beyond control 
as though it had happened, he says : 

"Let determined things to destiny 
Hold unbewailed their way." 

Shakespeare was great enough to know that every 
human being prefers happiness to misery, and that 
crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity upon the 
human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes 
and cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny- 
paths, he was great and good enough to say : 

''There is no darkness but ignorance." 

In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This 
great truth fills the heart with pity. 

He knew that place and power do not give happi- 
ness — that the crowned are subject as the lowest to 
fate and chance. 



58 SHAKESPEARE. 

'* For within the hollow crown, 
That rounds the mortal temples of a king, 
Keeps death his court ; and there the antick sits, 
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ; 
Allowing him a breath, a little scene 
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ; 
Infusing him with self and vain conceit. — 
As if this flesh, which walls about our life, 
Were brass impregnable ; and, humour' d thus, 
Comes at the last, and with a little pin 
Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king !" 

So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy — 
that death and misfortune come alike to rich and 
poor, because : 

' ' If thou art rich thou art poor ; 
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows 
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, 
And death unloads thee." 

In some of his philosophy there was a kind of 
scorn — a hidden meaning that could not in his day 
and time have safely been expressed. You will 
remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, 
and this king was the murderer of his own brother, 
and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime 
and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts 
these words : 

*' There's such divinity doth hedge a king/* 



SHAKESPEARE. Sq 

So, in Macbeth : 

''How he solicits Heaven himself best knows; but 
strangely visited people 
All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, 
The mere despairs of surgery, he cures.; 
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, 
Put on with holy prayers ; and 'tis spoken 
To the succeeding royalty — he leaves 
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue 
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, 
And sundry blessings hang about his throne. 
That speak him full of grace. ' ' 

Shakespeare was the master of the human heart — 
knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions and passions 
that sway the mind of man ; and thus knowing, he 
declared that 

* * Love is not love that alters 
When it alteration finds.'* 

This is the sublimest declaration in the literature 
of the world. 

Shakespeare seems to give the generalization — 
the result — without the process of thought. He 
seems always to be at the conclusion — standing 
where all truths meet. 

In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line 
that contains the highest possible truth : 



60 SHAKESPEARE. 

** Conscience is born of love.'* 

If man were incapable of suffering, the words 
right and wrong never could have been spoken. If 
man were destitute of imagination, the flower of pity 
never could have blossomed in his heart. 

We suffer — we cause others to suffer — those that 
we love — and of this fact conscience is born. 

Love is the many-colored flame that makes the 
fireside of the heart. It is the mingled spring and 
autumn — the perfect cHmate of the soul. 

XIII. 

TN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to 
have exhausted the relations, parallels and simili- 
tudes of things, He only could have said : 

** Tedious as a twice-told tale 
Vexing the ears of a drowsy man." 

*' Duller than a g.'-eat thaw. 
Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage. ' ' 

In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we 
find the most wonderful collection of pictures and 
comparisons ever compressed within the same num- 
ber of lines : 



SHAKESPEARE. 6l 

'* Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, — 
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes — 
Those scraps are good deeds past ; which are devoured 
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon 
As done ; perseverance, dear my lord. 
Keeps honor bright : to have done is to hang 
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way ; 
For honor travels in a strait so narrow 
Where one but goes abreast ; keep then the path ; 
For emulation hath a thousand sons 
That one by one pursue ; if you give way, 
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright. 
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by 
And leave you hindmost : 
Or, hke a gallant horse fallen in first rank. 
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, 
O'errun and trampled on : then what they do in present, 
Tho' less than yours in past, must o' ertop yours ; 
For time is like a fashionable host 
That slightly g^hakes his parting guest by the hand, 
And with his arms outstretched as he would fly, 
Grasps in the comer : Welcome ever smiles, 
And Farewell goes out sighing." 

So ^>e words of Cleopatra, when Charmam 
speak? 

" Peace, peace : 
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast 
That sucks the nurse asleep ? ' ' 



XIV. 

\ TOTHING is more difficult than a definition — a 
^ crystallization of thought so perfect that it emits 
light. Shakespeare says of suicide : 

** It is great to do that thing 
That ends all other deeds, 
Which shackles accident, and bolts up change.'* 

He defines drama to be : 

"Turning the accomplishments of many years 
Into an hour glass." 

Of death : 

** This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod, 
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot. ' ' 

Of memory : 

** The warder of the brain.'* 

Of the body : 

* * This muddy vesture of decay. " 

And he declares that 

*' Our little life is rounded with a sleep. *' 

He speaks of Echo as : 

* * The babbling gossip of the air " — 

Romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to 

take, says : 

(62) 



SHAKESPEARE. 63 

** Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide, 
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on 
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark. ' ' 

He describes the world as 

'' This bank and shoal of time. '* 

He says of rumor — 

" That it doubles, like the voice and echo. '* 

It would take days to call attention to the perfect 
definitions, comparisons and generalizations of 
Shakespeare. He gave us the deeper meanings of 
our words — taught us the art of speech. He was 
the lord of language — master of expression and 
compression. 

He put the greatest thoughts into the shortest 
words — made the poor rich and the common royal. 

Production enriched his brain. Nothing exhausted 
him. The moment his attention was called to any 
subject — comparisons, definitions, metaphors and 
generalizations filled his mind and begged for utter- 
ance. His thoughts like bees robbed every blossom 
in the world, and then with *' merry march "brought 
the rich booty home ''to the tent royal of their 
emperor." 

Shakespeare was the confidant of Nature. To 
him she opened her ** infinite book of secrecy," and 
in his brain were '* the hatch and brood of time.'* 



XV. 

T^HERE is in Shakespeare the mingliag of laughter 
and tears, humor and pathos. Humor is the 
rose, wit the thorn. Wit is a crystalHzation, humor 
an efflorescence. Wit comes from the brain, humor 
from the heart. Wit is the Hghtning of the soul. 

In Shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. 
He saw and felt the sunny side even of the saddest 
things. You have seen sunshine and rain at once. 
So Shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. In 
moments of peril — on the very darkness of death — 
there comes a touch of humor that falls like a fleck 
of sunshine. 

Gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having 
seen the boatswain, exclaims : 

' ' I have great comfort from this fellow ; 
Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him ; 
His complexion is perfect gallows. ' ' 

Shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of 
grief and laughter. While poor Hero is supposed 
to be dead — wrapped in the shroud of dishonor — « 
Dogberry and Verges unconsciously put again the * 
wedding wreath upon her pure brow. 

The soliloquy of Launcelot — great as Hamlets 

— offsets the bitter and burning words of Shylock. 

(64) 



SHAKESPEARE. 65 

There is only time to speak of Maria in *' Twelfth 
Night/' of Autolycus in the '' Winter's Tale," of the 
parallel drawn by Fluellen between Alexander of 
Macedon and Harry of Monmouth, or of the mar- 
velous humor of Falstaff, who never had the faintest 
thought of right or wrong — or of Mercutio, that 
embodiment of wit and humor — or of the grave- 
diggers who lamented that ''great folk should have 
countenance in this world to drown and hang them- 
selves, more than their even Christian," and who 
reached the generalization that '* the gallows does 
well because it does well to those who do ill." 

There is also an example of grim humor — an ex- 
ample without a parallel in literature, so far as I 
know. Hamlet having killed Polonius is asked : 

*' Where's Polonius?" 

"At supper." 

"At supper! where?" 

" Not where he eats, but where he is eaten." 

Above all others, Shakespeare appreciated the 
pathos of situation. 

Nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in 
" Lear." No one has ever bent above his dead who 
did not feel the words uttered by the mad king, — 
words born of a despair deeper than tears : 



66 SHAKESPEARE. 

" Oh, that a horse, a dog, a rat hath hfe 
And thou no breath ! ' ' 

So lago, after he has been wounded, says : 

" I bleed, sir; but not killed." 

And Othello answers from the wreck and shattered 
remnant of his life : 

' ' I would have thee live ; 
For in my sense it is happiness to die.'' 

When Troilus finds Cressida has been false, he 
cries : 

" Let it not be believed for womanhood ; 
Think ! we had mothers. ' ' 

Ophelia, in her madness, ** the sweet bells jangled 
)ut o' tune," says softly : 

* ' I would give you some violets ; 
But they withered all when my father died. ' * 

When Macbeth has reaped the harvest, the seeds 
of which were sown by his murderous hand, he ex- 
claims, — and what could be more pitiful ? 

** I 'gin to be aweary of the sun." 

Richard the Second feels how small a thing it is 
to be, or to have been, a king, or to receive honors 



SHAKESPEARE. 67 

before or after power is lost ; and so, of those who 

stood uncovered before him, he asks this piteous 

question : 

" I live with bread, like you ; feel want, 
Taste grief, need friends ; subjected thus, 
How can you say to me I am a king ? " 

Think of the salutation of Antony to the dead 
Caesar : 

** Pardon me, thou piece of bleeding earth." 

When Pisanio informs Imogen that he had been 

ordered by Posthumus to murder her, she bares her 

neck and cries : 

*' The lamb entreats the butcher : 
Where is thy knife ? Thou art too slow 
To do thy master's bidding when I desire it." 

Antony, as the last drops are falling from his self- 
inflicted wound, utters with his dying breath to 
Cleopatra, this : 

*'I here importune death awhile, until 
Of many thousand kisses the poor last 
I lay upon thy lips." 

To me, the last words of Hamlet are full of pathos : 

**I die, Horatio. 
The potent poison quite o'er crows my spirit * * * 

The rest is silence." 



XVI. 

COME have insisted that Shakespeare must have 
been a physician, for the reason that he shows 
such knowledge of Medicine — of the symptoms of 
disease and death — was so famiHar with the brain, 
and with insanity in all its forms. 

I do not think he was a physician. He knew too 
much — his generalizations were too splendid. He 
had none of the prejudices of that profession in his 
time. We might as well say that he was a musician, 
a composer, because we find in *' The Two Gentle- 
men of Verona " nearly every musical term known 
in Shakespeare's time. 

Others maintain that he was a lawyer, perfectly 
acquainted with the forms, with the expressions 
familiar to that profession — yet there is nothing to 
show that he was a lawyer, or that he knew more 
about law than any intelligent man should know. 

He was not a lawyer. His sense of justice was 
never dulled by reading English law. 

Some think that he was a botanist, because he 
named nearly all known plants. Others, that he was 
an astronomer, a naturalist, because he gave hints 
and suggestions of nearly all discoveries. 

(68) 



SHAKESPEARE. 69 

Some have thought that he must have been a 
sailor, for the reason that the orders given in the 
opening of '' The Tempest " were the best that could, 
under the circumstances, have been given to save 
the ship. 

For my part, I think there is nothing in the plays 
to show that he was a lawyer, doctor, botanist or 
scientist. He had the observant eyes that really 
see, the ears that really hear, the brain that retains 
all pictures, all thoughts, logic as unerring as light, 
the imagination that supplies defects and builds the 
perfect from a fragment. And these faculties, these 
aptitudes, working together, account for what he 
did. 

He exceeded all the sons of men in the splendor 
of his imagination. To him the whole world paid 
tribute, and nature poured her treasures at his feet. 
In him all races lived again, and even those to be 
were pictured in his brain. 

He was a man of imagination — that is to say, of 
genius, and having seen a leaf, and a drop of water, 
he could construct the forests, the rivers, and the 
seas — and in his presence all the cataracts would 
fall and foam, the mists rise, the clouds form and 
float. 



70 SHAKESPEARE. 

If Shakespeare knew one fact, he knew its kindred 
and its neighbors. Looking at a coat of mail, he 
instantly imagined the society, the conditions, that 
produced it and what it, in turn, produced. He saw 
the castle, the moat, the draw-bridge, the lady in the 
tower, and the knightly lover spurring across the 
plain. He saw the bold baron and the rude retainer, 
the trampled serf, and all the glory and the grief of 
feudal life. 

He lived the life of all. 

He was a citizen of Athens in the days of Pericles. 
He listened to the eager eloquence of the great ora- 
tors, and sat upon the cliffs, and with the tragic poet 
heard ** the multitudinous laughter of the sea." He 
saw Socrates thrust the spear of question through 
the shield and heart of falsehood. He was present 
when the great man drank hemlock, and met the 
night of death, tranquil as a star meets morning. 
He listened to the peripatetic philosophers, and was 
unpuzzled by the sophists. He watched Phidias as 
he chiseled shapeless stone to forms of love and 
awe. 

He lived by the mysterious Nile, amid the vast 
and monstrous. He knew the very thought that 
wrought the form and features of the Sphinx. He 



SHAKESPEARE. 7 1 

heard great Memnon's morning song when marble 
lips were smitten by the sun. He laid him down 
with the embalmed and waiting dead, and felt within 
their dust the expectation of another life, mingled 
with cold and suffocating doubts ~ the children born 
of long delay. 

He walked the ways of mighty Rome, and saw 
great Caesar with his legions in the field. He stood 
with vast and motley throngs and watched the 
triumphs given to victorious men, followed by un- 
crowned kings, the captured hosts, and all the spoils 
of ruthless war. He heard the shout that shook the 
Coliseum's roofless walls, when from the reeling 
gladiator's hand the short sword fell, while from his 
bosom crushed the stream of wasted life. 

He lived the life of savage men. He trod the 
forests' silent depths, and in the desperate game of 
life or death he matched his thought against the in- 
stinct of the beast. 

He knew all crimes and all regrets, all virtues and 
their rich rewards. He was victim and victor, pur- 
suer and pursued, outcast and king. He heard the 
applause and curses of the world, and on his heart 
had fallen all the nights and noons of failure and 
success. 



72 SHAKESPEARE. 

He knew the unspoken thoughts, the dumb desires, 
the wants and ways of beasts. He felt the crouch- 
ing tiger's thrill, the terror of the ambushed prey, 
and with the eagles he had shared the ecstasy of 
flight and poise and swoop, and he had lain with 
sluggish serpents on the barren rocks uncoiling 
slowly in the heat of noon. 

He sat beneath the bo-tree's contemplative shade, 
wrapped in Buddha's mighty thought, and dreamed 
all dreams that light, the alchemist, has wrought from 
dust and dew, and stored within the slumbrous 
poppy's subtle blood. 

He knelt with awe and dread at every shrine — 
he offered every sacrifice, and every prayer — felt 
the consolation and the shuddering fear — mocked 
and worshiped all the gods — enjoyed all heavens 
and felt the pangs of every hell. 

He lived all lives, and through his blood and brain 
there crept the shadow and the chill of every death, 
and his soul, like Mazeppa, was lashed naked to the 
wild horse of every fear and love and hate. 

The Imagination had a stage in Shakespeare's 
brain, whereon were set all scenes that lie between 
the morn of laughter and the night of tears, and 
where his players bodied forth the false and true, the 



SHAKESPEARE. 73 

joys and griefs, the careless shallows and the tragic 
deeps of universal life. 

From Shakespeare's brain there poured a Niagara 
of gems spanned by Fancy's seven-hued arch. He 
was as many-sided as clouds are many-formed. To 
him giving was hoarding — sowing was harvest — 
and waste itself the source of wealth. Within his 
marvelous mind were the fruits of all thought past, 
the seeds of all to be. As a drop of dew contains 
the image of the earth and sky, so all there is of life 
was mirrored forth in Shakespeare's brain. 

Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean, whose 
waves touched all the shores of thought ; within 
which were all the tides and waves of destiny and 
will ; over which swept all the storms of fate, ambi- 
tion and revenge ; upon which fell the gloom and 
darkness of despair and death and all the sunlight of 
content and love, and within which was the inverted 
sky lit with the eternal stars -= an intellectual ocean 
—towards which all rivers ran, and from which now 
the isles and continents of thought receive their dew 
and rain. 



AN INTIMATE VIEW 

OF 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 

By I. NEWTON BAKER, A.M. 



NEW, UNIQUE, FASCINATING 

This book is well-entitled an "intimate" view, it is a very 
finely drawn portrait of Colonel Ingersoll. It is not so much 
a biography of him, or a book about him, as it is a study of the 
man himself, whom it brings before you as a living personal- 
ity. The author was for many years closely associated with 
him as his confidential secretary and friend. With this advan- 
tage, coupled with a power of vivid portrayal, he has produced 
for us a really notable work, that will be accepted in a wide 
circle as a true likeness of the Great Original. 

With overflowing enthusiasm and reverent admiration the 
author depicts for us many aspects of his hero's life. He 
traces his career as a great lawyer and peerless orator and 
writer whose lips and pen "dropped polished pearls;" shows 
him as wonderful in conversation and narration, swift in 
repartee, and flashing with wholesome wit and humor; exhibits 
him as patriot, philosopher, philanthropist, and lover of his 
kind — as the ^holder of a lighted torch." On religious ques- 
tions it reveals him as the Great Agnostic, as the hater of 
hypocrisy, bigotry and superstition and an implacable foe of 
the dogma of eternal pain. It introduces you to the privacy of 
his home, and shows you the model lover, husband, father and 
friend, and finally gives the true account of his last illness and 
death. 

The whole story is illuminating and inspiring, more fas- 
cinating than a novel and as true as it is fascinating. It is full 
of incidents and facts not hitherto published. We cannot too 
highly commend it, especially to the rising generation of 
readers who would make the acquaintance of a great and rarely 
beautiful spirit, "a combination and a form indeed where every 
god did seem to set his seal to give the world assurance of a 
MAN/' 

The work contains apt quotations from Col. Ingersoll's 
writings and sayings and is embellished with a photograveure 
portrait and a replica of the urn that holds his ashes. Price, 
cloth $2.00; three-quarter Morocco, $5.00. 

Address G. P. FARRELL, Publisher 

117 E. Twenty-first St., New York City. 



INGERSOLL 
Fifty Great Selections 



Lectures, Tributes, After-Dinner Speeches and 
Essays, carefully selected from the twelve volume 
Dresden Edition of Colonel IngersolFs Complete Works. 

A wholly new selection — ^many never before pub- 
lished outside of the Dresden Edition— just from the 
press, containing such masterpieces as IngersolFs 
Tribute to his brother. At a Child's Grave, Life, The 
Laugh of a Child, At the Tomb of Napoleon, Grant 
Banquet, Vision of War, speech nominating Blaine, 
Tribute to Roscoe Conkling, Henry Ward Beecher, Walt 
Whitman, Liberty of Man, Woman and Child, Founda- 
tions of Faith, How to Reform Mankind, his last lec- 
ture. What is Religion. Thirteen Club, Lotos Club, 
Police Captains and other after dinner speeches. 
What Infidels Have Done. Shall Infidels send their 
children to Sunday School. 

Sent to any address, post free, on receipt of price., 
In Venetian Boards, cloth back $1.00. 

Address C. P. FARRELL, Publisher 

117 E. Twenty-first St., New York City. 



Works by John £• Remsburg 



THE BIBLE. A new book about the Bible. The best one 
of all. Large i2mo. 500 pages. Cloth, $1.50 Postpaid. 
Eleven chapters on Authenticity of the Bible — Thir- 
teen on the Credibility of the Bible — Ten on th^^ 
Morality of the Bible. With an Appendix of Un- 
answerable arguments Against the Divine Origin and 
in favor of the Human Origin of the Bible. Twen- 
ty-six pages of Index, enabling the reader to refer in an in-» 
stant to any authority quoted or argument used. 

THE CHRIST, A critical Review and Analysis of the Evi- 
dences of His Existence. Large i2mo. 600 pages. Cloth, 
$1.50 

Chapters on Christ's Real Existence Impossible. Silence of' 
'.Contemporary Writers. Christian Evidence. Infancy of; 
Christ. The Resurrection of Christ. Character and Teachings.; 
The Christ a Myth. Sources of the Christ Myth. An index of 
19 pages enables the reader to open the book at the placi 
where he desires to reread or at the subject to which he, 
wishes to refer. 

SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS, Large i2mo. Price, $1.50 
This work consists of two parts, "The Fathers of the Repub-^ 
lie" and "The Saviors of Our Republic." In regard to Paine's 
religious views, Mr. Remsburg establishes the negative of; 
the following: (i) Was Paine an Atheist? (2) Was he 
Christian? (3) Did he recant? Page after page of the most 
radical Freethought sentiments are culled from the corre- 
spondence and other writings of Franklin and Jefferson, which, 
show that these men were as pronounced in their rejection 
of Christianity as Paine and IngersoU. That Washington was 
not a church cummunicant, nor even a believer in Christi- 
anity, is affirmed or admitted by more than a score of wit- 
nesses, one-half of them eminent clergymen, including the 
pastors of the churches which he with his wife attended. In 
support of Lincoln's Infidelity, he has collected the testimony 
of more than one hundred witnesses. These witnesses in- 
clude Mr. Lincoln's wife; his three law partners, Maj. Stuart, 
Judge Logan and W. H. Herndonj his private secretaries, 
Colonel Nicolay and Col. Hay; his executor after death, 
Judge David Davis; many of his biographers, including his 
companion and confidant. Col. Lamon; his political advisers, 
Col. Matheny, Jesse W. Fell, and Dr. Jayne; members of his 
cabinet, and scores more of his most intimate friends and 
associates. The refutation of Granf s alleged Christian belief 
is complete and the proofs of his unbelief are full and con- 
vincing. 

Address C. P. FARRELL, 

117 E. Twenty-first St., Ner,^ York. 



WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 

ABRAHAM lilNCOIiN. A Lecture. With Century portrait of the 
martyr President Cloth, 75 cents; paper, 25 cents 

ABOUT THE HOLY BIBI.E. A Lecture L_„„__ 1. 25 cents 

ADVICE TO PAIIE:NTS to keep CHILDBEN from CHURCH AN1> 
SUNDAY SCHOOIL.. Four-page tract 10 cents per dozen 

A 3FEW REASONS FOR DOUBTING THE INSPIRATION OF THE 
BIBLiE. From manuscript notes found among Col. IngersoU's 
papers — „ 10 cents 

A THANKSGIVING SERMON. Book contains also A Tribute to Henry 
Ward Beecher. "I thank," says Ingersoll, "the heroes, the apostles 
of reason, the disciples of truth, the soldiers of freedom— the heroes 
who held high the holy torch and filled the world with light..25 cents 

BliASPHEMY. Argument in the Trial of C. B. Reynolds, at Morristown, 
N. J Cloth, 50 cents: paper, 25 cents 

BIBI.E IDOI.ATRY. (Tract) 3 cents 

BURNS POEM (The.) For framing, illustrated 50 cents 

CREED OF SCIENCE. Printed on heavy enameled card; illustrated. 
A companion piece to Life 50 cents 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION (The.) A Discussion between Col. Ingersoll 

and Judge Jeremiah S. Black of Pennsylvania Cloth, 50 cents; 

paper, 25 cents. 

CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS. A Speech delivered before the New 
York State Bar Association, 15 cents. D© Luxe Roycroft Edition, 
very handsome „ $5.00 

DECLARATION OF THE FREE. Col. Ingersoll's last poem. On 
card, handsomely illustrated, size 12%xl6, (for mantel, wall or 
easel) _ _ _...50 cents 

DEVIL, (The.) A lecture, (1899.) "If the Devil should die, would God 
make another " „. „ — . - 25 cents 

ESSAYS AND CRITICISMS. Contents: Why am I an Agnostic? Hux- 
ley and Agnosticism; Ernest Renan; Count Tolstoy and the Kreutzer 
Sonata ..„ . Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 cents 

FOUNDATION OF FAITH. The lecture contains Colonel Ingersoll's 
famous "Creed of Science" - 25 cents 

FIELD-INGERSOLI* DISCUSSION. From the North American Re- 
view » Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 cents 

GODS (The.) „ - ~ Paper, 25 Cents 

GHOSTS AND OTHER LECTURES (The.) Including the Ghosts, 
Liberty of Man, Woman and Child; The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, About Farming in Illinois, Speech Nominating James G. 
Blaine for Presidency in 1876, the Grant Banquet, A Tribute to 
Rev. Alex. Clark, A Vision of War, and a Tribute to Ebon C. In- 
gersoll,. 252 pages ~ -. Cloth, $1.25 

GHOSTS (The.) „ -..- 25 cents 

GOD IN THE CONSTITUTION. In "What is Religion " 25 cents 

GOLD SPEECH. Delivered in the McKinley Campaign of 1890. Only 
a few left - 25 cents 

GREAT INFIDELS. Col. Ingersoll's challenge to the theological 
world to produce such a worker for humanity as Paine or such a 
great scientific discoverer as Darwin. He recounts some of the 
services to mankind rendered by those who are scornfully termed 
Infidels, and whom the church would gladly see consigned to 
oblivion ...„.„ - — Paper. 25 cents 

HOW TO REFORM MANKIND. An address delivered before the Mil- 
itant Church, at the Columbia Theatre, Chicago, April 12, 1896, (with 
portrait.) ...„ - -25 cents 

HARD TIMES AND THE WAY OUT. Only a few left..- — -„-.-25 cents 



HUMBOIiDT AND HERETICS AND HERESIES. TwO great lectures, 
one contrasting the splendid achievements of a typical master of 
science with the barren wastes of theology, the other telling what 

the world owes to its daring doubters 25 cents 

INDIVIDUAI.ITY. A Lecture ....^5 cents 

INGEBSOLL AS HE IS. By E. M. Macdonald. A refutation of the 

many clerical slanders concerning Ingersoll -Cloth, 75 cents; 

paper, 25 cents. 
INGERSOLIi— A BIOGBAPHICAIi APPRECIATION. By Herman 
B. Kittredge. Illustrated with photogravure frontispiece, printed 
on Japanese paper, and eight full-page, half-tones and facsimile 

letters — - _ _ Cloth, $3.00. 

INGERSOLiIi'S POIilTICAL SPEECHES. One volume. 582 pages. 

- - „....Cloth, $2.50 

INGERSOI.Ii-GI.ADSTONE CONTROVERSY. Wm. E. Gladstone's 
article and Colonel IngersoU's Reply. From the North American 

Review „ _ Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 25 cenf». 

INGERSOI.I. CATECHISED. An interview, (Tract) 3 centsu 

INGERSOI.E ON McGIiYNN. An interview, (Tract) _ 3 cents. 

IKGERSOIili BIRTHDAY BOOK. Selections by Grace Leland Macdon- 
ald (Mrs. G. E. Macdonald). Preface by Eva Ingersoll-Frown, 
Granddaughter of IngersolL Decorations by Paul F. Berdanier. 
Tinted in color on Sepia Plate paper, 252 pages, octavo. The 
Ingersoll Birthday Book is composed of selections from the writ- 
ings and speakings of Robert G. Ingersoll, one selection for every 
day in the year. The selections are placed under the dates to which 
they belong, on the "even" or left hand pages, while on the "odd" 
pages opposite are the same dates, with blank spaces under them 
for the writing in of the names of relatives, friends and others 
according as the birthday falls. Outwardly the book matches the 
volumes of the Dresden Edition of IngersoU's works. Inwardly 
will be found fine printing in color, with twelve original drawings 
and decorations appropriate to months and seasons, and an ex- 
clusive photo-reproduction of Ingersoll $1.65 

IKGERSOIili THE MAN. The Great Orator as he was known to those 
who lived near to him. By Clarence S. Brown, Colonel IngersoU's 

legal associate. (Tract) „ 5 cents. 

IS SUICIDE A SIN? Colonel IngersoU's Famous Letters and Replies 
from eminent men, with "Great Suicides of History" and Schopen- 
hauer's Essay ~ 25 cents 

ULY SERMON ON THE IwABOR QUESTION .- 5 cents. 

lilBERTY FOR MAN, WOMAN AND Cieil/D. Has a fine photo-en- 
graving of the Colonel and both his grandchildren, Eva and Robert; 

also the Tribute to His Brother _ 25 cents. 

MMITATIONS OF TOLERATIONS. A Discussion between Col. R. G. 
Ingersoll, the Hon. Frederick R. Coudert, and Ex-Gov. Stewart L. 

Woodford, before the Nineteenth Century Club 10 cents. 

I^IFE. A Prose- Poem. This world-famous monograph Is without its 
peer in literature. It is a gem without a flaw. The engraver's 
and printer's art have blended strength and beauty in their work, 
faithfully producing the dual portrait, and entwining a wild-rose 
border about it and the text, making altogether an exquisite work 
of art, suitable for framing for parlor, easel or mantel. This panel 
la printed and lithographed in color, and signed in autograph fac- 
simile on heavy card board, size 12i^xl6 inches 50 cents. 

MTHOGRAPH OF R. G. INGERSOtl.... 22x28 inches, heavy plate paper 

Life size head and bust; tinted back ground _ 50 cents. 

IX>OK BACKWARD AND A PROPHECY (A). By R. G. Ingersoll. 
Being the article he wrote for the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Number 
of the Truth Seeker, (1898.) A most brilliant review of the religious 
changes of the past quarter of a century. In "What is Religion." 

^ .^ 25 cent*. 



to Life, for framing colors and portraits, companion piece 

MYTH AND MIBACI.E. "a" Lecture " ~" "- ^^^^' 

MISTAKES OF MOSES (SomeS ConVenf^'"""""^";"^"^"^^";--^ ^^ ^^^<^S- 

Babel, Faith in Flk, tL Hetre'wl'\K"pi?#Srfhe FH^S^r^n'* 
&fu11f ^7^' S"' '"''"^' Ma„iage/lfaT'K^?i|io\riiw?t?: 

^^^!nH^?^^^ "^^^ SEI.ECTIONS. Revised anrg^eatly" enlarged A 
handsome quarto, containing over 4€0 pages. In cloth, beveled boards, 
?i} ^^K?^' containing steel engraving with autograph fac-simile of 
ine autnor a>o nn 

^ ^r^^^^ EDITION FROM SAME"Ti:ATE"s7"gOOd""paFer7"w^^^^ 
margin Ploth ^9 fin 

PATRIOTIC SPEECHES: REUNION iSDRESS AnFdeCO^^ 

^ K i?n^^'?-^^ ^^^ address delivered at Elmwood, 111., Septem- 
ber 5, 1895, at the reunion of his old regiment, the Eleventh Illinois 
cavalry— also his famous Oration delivered on Decoration Day, 1882, 
before the Grand Army of the Republic, at the Academy of Music, 
New York. These two classics are published in book form for the 
first time from revised manuscript and are the only authorized and 
*^2'"r?^'' reprints. It also contains a handsome half-tone portrait 
Of the Colonel and his little grandson, Robert G. Ingersoll-Brown. 
Jr'rinted on good paper, large type, wide margins, in one volume. 

PHOTOGRAPHS OF COI.. ROBT. G""lNGERsb'£iV"" Thf ^pa^^^ 

run lengh portraiture, is particularly suited for framing, and is 
commended to all the Colonel's admirers as the one eminently fitted 
for parlor, library or drawing-room. Prices: Panel % figure stand- 
i^^^^^^^* ^°:' ,^^-^^'' Panel, full figure, sitting in chair, 18x24 in., 

•.^■.?^°^'^i°^P^"^^' '5'%xl3 in., $2.00 Cabinet 4x6 in., $1.C0 

ROME OR REASON. Discussion between Cardinal Manning and 
Colonel Ingersoll, to which are added the Articles Oiscussing the 
Question "Is Divorce Wrong?" by Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Henry 

«-^J^^^^^^^' ^^^ Colonel Ingersoll Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 30 cents. 

SUPERSTITION. A Lecture. (1899) ! !...„... .....:...25 cents. 

SHAKESPEARE. "An Intellectual ocean, whose waves touched all the 
shores of thought." A lecture with likeness of Shakespeare from 

«^,J£® Kesselstadt death mask Cloth, 50> cents; paper, 25 cents. 

SOME REASONS WHY. A Lecture. Contents : Some Reasons Why. 
Duties to God. Inspiration. God's Experiment with the Jews. 
Civilized Countries. A comparison of Books. The New Testament. 
Christ's Mission. Eternal Pain _ 25 cents. 

STAGE AND PUI.PIT, An interview with Colonel Ingersoll upon their 
Comparative Merit. (Tract) . „ _ 3 cents. 

THE TRUTH. A Lecture _ 25 cents. 

TB.UTH OF HISTORY. Comments on the Assertion by an evangelist 
«iat Colonel Ingersoll had become a Christian, had admitted that 
Thomas Paine recanted, and that his own children had joined the 

church. (Tract.) „.... 3 cents. 

THOMAS PAINE. A Lecture „ _ 25 cents. 

THOMAS PAINE'S VINDICATION. A Reply to the New York Observ- 
er's attack upon the Author-Hero of the Revolution. A little pamph- 
let which every admirer of Thomas Paine should have by him for 
reference ...„ „ „..25cents. 

TOWARD HUMANITY. Selections from Ingersoll. Arranged by Anne 
Montgomerie Traubel. "In this selection I have wished to preserve 
tne wealth and variety of Ms emotion, to emphasize the depth of 



Ms knowledge and to manifest the vitality of his thought— thought 
that glows with the life he lived into it, knowledge that was not 
mere data in cold storage, but a source of life, and emotion that 
was warm, beneficent, creative" — ^A.M.T. Blue paper wrappers 50* 
Limp cloth „.. , $1.00 

TRIBUTE TO HIS BROTHER, EBON C. INGEBSOLI.. In the pam- 
phlet, "Liberty of Man, Woman and Child" „ 25 cenf». 

TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKI.ING. Printed by the State of New 
Tork, on heavy plate paper, wide margins, fine steel engraving wit& 
autograph fac-simile of Mr. Corikling. Bound in black cloth, gilt 
sides; now out of print and very valuable _ 75 cents'. 

TOIiTAIBE. A Lecture. With Portrait of the great French Philoso- 
pher and Poet. "Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, 
and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons 
of men" „ « 25 centsr. 

VISION OF WAR (A.) Illustrated by H. A. Ogden. The pictures are 
colored lithographs, printed upon heavy paper, about ten by twelve 
inches in size. Of these plates there are thirteen, with two addi- 
tional leaves upon "which the whole of the "Vision" is printed for 
consecutive reading. One page shows the author in uniform aa 
colonel of the Eleventh Illinois- Cavalry in 1862, and again in 1877, 
Tvhen he was at his prime. The pictures were seen and approved 
l)y Colonel IngersoU before his death. The whole of the vision, 
-with its grand and pathetic passages, is effectively pictured by the 
artist. Sent postpaid, complete ~ : — $1.0(X 

WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC. A Lecture „ 25 cents 

WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED? A Lecture. Analyzes the so- 
called gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and devotfis a 
chapter each -to the Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presby- 
terians, Evangelical Alliance, and answera( the questiori of the 
Christians as to what he proposes instead of Christianity, the 

^religion of sword and flam© „ ™ « ....25 cents 

WHICH WAT. This lecture is a consideration of the difiEerencef be- 
tween the natural and supernatural with some reasons why the 
former is the better way to go 25 cents. 

WHAT IS REIilGION? Colonel Ingersoll's last public address, de- 
livered at the meeting of the Free Religious Association in Boston 
on Jnne 2, 1899. The book contains also: Declaration of the Free 
(a poem). The Bible not a Moral Guide, a Vision of War, a Look 
Backward and a Prophecy, The Oath Question, and God in the 
Constitution -25 cents. 

WOMAN, TRIBUTE TO. For framing - 50' cents 

AlSr BOOKS '^ARE SENT BY EXPRESS OR MAII/ PREPAID UPOX 
RECEIPT OF PRICES NAMED 

COI.ONEI. INGEBSOIili'S NOTE TO THE PUBI,IO 

I wish to notify the public that all books and pamphlets purportinjr 
to contain my lectures, and not containing the imprint of Mr. C. P. 
Farrell as publisher, are spurious, grossly inaccurate, filled with mis- 
takes, horribly printed, and outrageously unjust to me. The publishers 
of all such are simply literary thieves and pirates, and are obtaining 
money from the public under false pretences. These wretches have pub- 
lished one lecture under four titles, and several others under two or 
three. I take this course to warn the public that these publications 
are fraudulent; the only correct editions being those published by 
Mr. C. P. Farrell. 

R. G. INGERSOI*Ii. 

Address C. P. FARRELL 
117 East 21st Street New York 



LBAp3Q 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pre 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 

PreservationTechnolot 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESER' 

111 Thomson Park Drive 



